February, 2011

Net Neutrality The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hauled all five commissioners of the FCC up to the Hill Wednesday to explain the agency’s recent net neutrality rulemaking, marking the opening gambit it would could be a long and messy fight between the commission’s Democratic majority and the new Republican majority in the House over the agency’s legal authority to enforce the new rules.

Uncharacteristically for such oversight hearings, Wednesday’s event drew nearly the full complement of subcommittee members, as well as cameo appearances from the chairman and ranking member of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, and ran for more than three hours, signalling net neutrality’s surprising emergence as a major political issue heading into the 2012 election cycle, especially (if somewhat inexplicably) among Tea Party types in the GOP. Read More »

Planning to attend the NAB show in Las Vegas in April? The folks at NAB are generously offering Concurrent Media readers free access to the exhibit floor, as well as to the opening keynote and state of the industry addresses, the info sessions, the content theater and the various specialty areas, or Pits, focusing on broadband, post production, pro audio and radio — a $150 value.

Contact me by phone or email for the special promotional code to use when registering.

Apple While publishers freak out over Apple’s demand for a piece of their iPad action, Apple Insider points to a newly issued patent that suggests Apple may eventually impose the same sort of vig on wireless service providers as well, now that the iPhone and iPad have been untethered in the U.S. from a single carrier.

The patent, titled “Dynamic carrier selection,” was originally filed in 2006, a year before the iPhone was actually introduced, and describes a method by which mobile devices could store multiple network addresses from different networks allowing the device to communicate with multiple network service providers. After receiving data from all available networks in a given area, the device or the user could the select which one to use according to various criteria, such as signal strength, cost, usage rules, etc. Read More »

App Stores A piece in the New York Times Tuesday set off a torrent of speculation over an alleged new move by Apple to “tighten control over [its] app store.” The story paraphrased Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reader business, saying Sony had been told by Apple that “some applications developers, including Sony… can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.”

The hook for the piece was Apple’s apparent rejection of Sony’s e-reader app for the iPad, which let users buy e-books through the Sony Reader Store and to access e-books they had already purchased there from their iPad. From now on, Apple allegedly told Sony, “all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple,” which takes a 30 percent cut of all such transactions. Read More »

Newsletter

Yahoo is announcing a new live news program anchored by the company’s global news anchor, Katie Couric. The new show, called Yahoo News Live, will air daily at 1 p.m. ET. Source: Yahoo launches live news show with Katie Couric | VentureBeat | Business | by Ruth Reader

Campaigns in past cycles have used information about consumers’ personalities and interests to target ad buying. These days, marketers are increasingly making use of complicated data and targeting tools to buy their ads more efficiently. Political advertisers are interested in doing the same, according to Chris Choi, head of media at Blue State Digital, an agency that serves political groups. Source: Political World Preps for Tech-Driven Ad Buying in 2016 Race – CMO Today – WSJ

First opened in beta last September, Sponsored Listening is a reward-based ad product that lets users on the ad-supported “free” service remove ads for an hour by actively engaging with a brand. This could be through watching a short video or clicking to visit a company’s website. Source: Pandora’s Sponsored Listening launches out of beta: Remove ads by giving brands your full attention | VentureBeat | Business | by Paul Sawers

Sources familiar with Apple’s plans tell BuzzFeed News that the company intends to announce its next-generation Apple TV in September, at the same event at which it typically unveils its new iPhones. The device itself is pretty much as we described it to you in March, sources say, but “more polished” after some additional tweaks. Source: Get Ready For A New Apple TV In September – BuzzFeed News

The shares surged 17.5 percent Thursday on the news that the WWE Network ended the second-quarter with 1.2 million subscribers, an increase of 75 percent from a year ago. Source: WWE Network shares soar 17 percent in second quarter | New York Post

We’re living in an age where the underdog wins. Startups — and individuals with the mentality of startups — have the agility to shift massive industries. One need only look to Uber as an example of this. Now we’re seeing the same principle apply to the media industry, where small players are causing big changes as a result of the low distribution costs and high ad-revenue potential on social media. Source: A Fragile Moment for Big Media | Re/code

The first briefs were filed Thursday in the legal challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s open Internet order, kicking-off an expedited schedule set by the D.C court of appeals. Oral arguments could come as soon as the end of this year. Source: First briefs filed in legal challenge to FCC’s open Internet order (updated) – Katy on the Hill